It was only after P.J. Axelsson's empty-netter with 10 seconds left that the Bruins could finally take a breath against a plucky Lightning club that saved face and turned in a respectable final 40 minutes.
"It was a good first 20," said Zdeno Chara after the 5-3 win before 16,973 at TD Banknorth Garden. "But after that, somehow we still scored some goals, but we got away from our game plan. We just tried to be too cute."
In the first period, after Matt Hunwick made a strong play at the left point to keep the puck in the zone, Dennis Wideman took a feed from Phil Kessel, skated around defenseman Lukas Krajicek, and slid a pass out front to Milan Lucic, who shoveled a shot past Smith at 6:44. With the helpers, Kessel extended his scoring streak to 12 games while Wideman recorded his 100th career point.
At 9:29, Kessel was credited with his 17th goal when his pass for Lucic skipped off the stick of defenseman Paul Ranger and through Smith.
Lightning coach Rick Tocchet called a timeout at 10:46 after Michael Ryder took a cross-ice pass from Shane Hnidy and rifled an off-wing shot past Smith that made it a 3-0 game.
In retrospect, Tampa's first-period meltdown turned Boston's confidence into cockiness. After threatening to take a 4-0 advantage in the second period - Axelsson was denied by Smith on a penalty shot - the Bruins tried to turn their lunch-pail game into one of finesse.
No dice.
"Something you don't like to see, I guess," said coach Claude Julien. "We're getting used to wins and that's nice, but we're at the stage now where we're looking at how we're winning hockey games.
"The way we won this one tonight, we're not going to win many of them. That's probably the thing that needs to be learned here.
"Once we got a comfortable lead, we decided to get cute. And that doesn't really go well with our hockey club."
